The Tapestry of Shadows
by Snowball-in-Hell
Summary: Troubled by hereditary insanity, two of the four Nightsong children arrive at the White Tower to seek service as Gaidin...


Twilight was fading to a deep amethyst and the moon was beginning to show in a shrouded crescent behind the stark white of the Tower as the twins rode towards their destiny. The sound of the horses' hooves rapping sharply against the stonework of the road seemed to Lethe to synchronize with his heartbeat, beating slowly and irrevocably carrying him towards the Tower.  
  
Thump. Thump A pace closer. Thump, thump. Closer still. Thumpthumpthumpthump. Lethe felt as though his heart might suddenly burst apart his chest with strain. Despite the night's coolness, sweat trickled down his forehead.  
  
'Easy', said the calm voice of his brother behind him. Lethe turned in his saddle, still continuing that irrevocable pace towards the Tower.  
  
His twin sat on his horse naturally and easily, wearing the heavy plate armour of Shienar the way another man might wear his wool coat and breeches. The long hilts of two swords protruded from behind his armoured shoulders, the end of his dark topknot hanging between them. Lethe stared into that pale, unreadable face, that he knew to be identical to his own. The hardness of the warrior was momentarily softened by concern.  
  
'The visions, Lethe?'  
  
'No. I told you I. stopped seeing them'. Lethe's voice held unexpected vehemence. Light, I'm not insane. 'I just. felt something. I'm not sure this.'  
  
His voice trailed off, unsure how to put words around what he felt.  
  
Leon Nightsong shrugged. 'If we must do this thing, let us do it'. Suiting action to words, he spurred his gray mare to a gallop, overtaking Lethe and rushing across the bridge to Tar Valon in a silent rush of night breeze. Lethe paused, torn by conflicting emotions, then follwed his twin into the city.  
  
'Halt! Who goes there?'. The grizzled squadman, the flame of Tar Valon emblazoned across his surcoat raised a hand and two pikes dropped in front of the Nightsong twin's path. A company of Guardsmen held the gate, glaring suspiciously at the latecomers.  
  
He studied Lethe and Leon in silence. Lethe, dressed all in black, and swathed in a hooded travelling cloak that made his resemble a raven of ill omen, with one sword across his back and dark hair pulled back in the warrior's topknot. Leon, dressed in white and gray and steel armour, eyes unreadable above the pale, raised cheekbones.  
  
The squadman stared into Lethe's eyes. Behind those dark, pitted hollows a wild, chained beast raged, held back only by an iron will. The veteran Guardsman took an involuntary step backward. Then Lethe smiled, a flash of white teeth in darkness that only completed the resemblance to a predatory creature.  
  
'I am Lethe Nightsong and this is my brother Leon. We have come to learn from the Gaidin'  
  
The squadman gave a half-shrug and waved them through. Lethe sensed his thoughts as they passed, and noted his flinch as Lethe's black warhorse whinnied and pulled at the reins, exposing long teeth in a gesture uncomfortably similar to its master's smile  
  
Leon paused as they passed through the archway, then tossed a coin to the squadman. The silver glinted in the moonlight.  
  
'For your trouble'  
  
Lethe gave a mocking and harsh laugh and the twins rode on through the sleeping city  
  
As they came to the imposing bulk of the Tower, Leon frowned. 'No-one will be awake at this hour, Lethe. Perhaps we should find an inn and come in the morning'  
  
'There will be someone', said Lethe softly. His dark eyes shone unreadably. 'There will be someone, Leon'  
  
A shadow stepped from the archways, and held up a hand to halt them. As it came into the light, the brothers recognised it.  
  
Lethe exchanged hooded looks with his brother. Akrada Lamasu, the Shienaran poet and warrior was here. It looked like he was not to be the only northern renegade.  
  
'I had not thought to see you again, Akrada', said Lethe softly  
  
Akrada shrugged, his hard face expressionless in the moonlight.  
  
'What does the heir of the Nightsong and his brother this far south?' His cloak swirled around him, black and shapeless as the night, melding and spurning the eye in a blend that would have turned a normal man's stomach. Lethe found it almost soothing.  
  
'Dark is the Night  
  
And sweet is the Song  
  
But darker and sweeter and viler by far  
  
Is our Lady of Nightsong, the maiden Kamar'  
  
Lethe recited Akrada's verse in a soft, almost mocklingly toneless voice.  
  
'You never forgave her for marrying Father and not you, did you, Akrada? You were one of the greatest commanders the Shienaran army ever had, but you just had to write that doggerel verse and get exiled'  
  
'What does this have to do with your presence south, Lord-Heir Nightsong?', demanded Akrada, his Gaidin's calm momentarily ruffled by the old sores Lethe scratched.  
  
Leon approached, leaning close to his brother. 'Akrada is an honourable man, Lethe, despite his ill-fated love for Mother. And he is to be one of our teacher's besides. Cease this needling'  
  
Lethe gave no indication he had even heard his brother's words of caution. Perched on his horse, he cocked his head to one side as if he were listening for some distant sound and suddenly changed his entire aspect, in one of his notorious mood-swings.  
  
'Lord-Heir Nightsong?', he inquired merrily, a sparkle of half-mad mirth in his eye,' I fear you do me too much honour, Akrada. My brother here is the new Lord-Heir. I have forfeited my claim to that title by a rather unpleasant fit of temper, the end result of which I regret to inform you was to the detriment of Shienaran polite society.  
  
I will be brief, the courtesy of poets and madmen. My hands, Akrada, are stained with the blood of three young nobles, among them your kinsman Nevasu Jikam'  
  
Akrada drew his breath in a shocked intake. 'You slew Nevasu and two others?'  
  
Lethe gave a mock-solemn nod of the head, now given over entirely to the mercurial demon of madness that lurked within him.  
  
'Alas I did, good Akrada. Alas I did. And now I have come to that last great refuge of killers and poets and madmen, the White Tower itself'  
  
Lethe burst into song. His voice was rich and soft, like smooth satin and the echoes of his little song rang eerily through the still night.  
  
'Oh, I am a roving, courting blade  
  
They call me Jak Of All Trades  
  
They always place my chief delight in courting pretty fair maids!'  
  
The echoes seemed to magnify and hollow the sound until a new meaning within the puerile words was reached, one dark and terrible and cruel.  
  
'Peace, brother!', shouted Leon,' You talk madness!'  
  
At the speaking of that word, Lethe suddenly and abruptly ceased to sing. He gave a single, slow shiver and returned deliberately to the cold waters of sanity.  
  
'Not yet, Leon. Not yet', he said but his words lacked the power to convince. He gave a weak smile to Akrada, the closest he would recieve to an apology.  
  
'Not my finest poetry, hey?'  
  
'I never cared for your music or poems, Nightsong', said Akrada coolly, trying to restrain his repugnance for Lethe's clear lack of stability. 'Furthermore, your murder of my cousin Nevasu places blood-debt between us'  
  
Leon interrupted. 'My brother was not in his right mind at the time, Akrada. The Light does not hold madmen responsible for their deeds'  
  
'Though the Shienaran Law might differ', muttered Lethe cynically. He gave a bright, crisp smile and finished his brother's sentence in a habit the twins had had since childhood. 'We have come to train with the Gaidin, Akrada'  
  
He slid down from his sable warhorse and offered the Gaidin his hand in an apparantly uncriticizably courteous gesture. Akrada took a moment to look at this man, the son of his most loved and hated.  
  
Dressed in a black silk coat and tight breeches, over that Lethe wore ornate black leather armour, with hardened ridges running up back and chest, forming whorls and spirals on the boiled leather. Along these ridges strips of silver were sown, such as might deflect a sword-blow in battle, and they glinted strangely against the dull black leather. Across his chest was slung the baldric for the sword on his back, and from it hung discs of silver and steel, each stamped with the crescent moon of House Nightsong. Black tassels, bound tightly in silver rings, hung from the wrists of the strange armour's sleeves.  
  
Lethe Nightsong's face, pale and enigmatic, took on a strange life of its own in the shadows and moonlight, filling the deep-set eyes and ridged cheeks with shade and light in conflicting quantities. With a strangely incongruous note, Akrada noted that Lethe followed the poet's traditional penchant for long hair, giving him a long topknot whose tail dangled below the sword hilt on his back, and also that he had neglected to shave his head aside from the top-knot, meaning the smooth, pitch-black hair of the warrior was visibly pulled back into a tail.  
  
Akrada shrugged and gestured for the twins to dismount while he disappeared into the darkness  
  
'Now, brother, please sing for me. You know my favorite'  
  
Lethe looked at his brother. The suggestion that he sing was more than just a whim. Music had the effect of calming him, the mere act of playing and reciting the leashed madness of his vision paradoxically restoring sense to him. Leon was worried, though his warrior's face revealed none of it. His twin could sense it.  
  
'Very well', said Lethe at length, and burrowed into the saddlebag hanging from Cor'ashan's flanks. He produced a small harp, and began carefully to retune it, snapping the strings taut with a wooden key.  
  
The harp was a work of art by itself, made all of seamless, dark sung wood, and inlaid with elaborate silver scrolling. Its strings had the consistency and lightness of cobweb. Lethe ran a loving hand down the harp. It had cost him a small fortune from the Ogier of the stedding nearby House Nightsong's desmesne, but he counted it worth every penny.  
  
Lethe's long, slender fingers ran across the strings, coaxing forth a dreamy, somnolent chord which widened into a low, lulling melody. Somewhere, Lethe found his voice and began a soft, wordless hum.  
  
His twin closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, a motionless figure of light and shade in the moonlight's glow.  
  
Lethe's humming broke into words. He sang in a hypnotic, soporific voice, his words almost whispered to the still night.  
  
'I have had strange dreams of this place in the empty times.  
  
Far below there are wavering pines  
  
I left the rowan elphin woods to think on ancient headlands  
  
Dipping slowly into the glasen seas of evening  
  
On the devastated peaks of hills we ease the barrenness into our thin bones  
  
Like a foot into a tight shoe  
  
The narrative of this place:  
  
Other than the smashed arris of the ridge there are only sad winds and silences  
  
I lay on the cairn one more rock  
  
I am possessed by time'  
  
Lethe slowly brought the harp-music to an end. Stillness and silence reigned.  
  
'I composed that song on the hill above the Nightsong manse. From there, that rocky hillside, you could see to the Blight...'  
  
Lethe's voice trailed off, then began again.  
  
'They say there used to be a city there'  
  
He suddenly paced over to where his brother stood and gazed at his closed eyes.  
  
'Leon, why is that song your favorite?'  
  
Leon's eyes opened. 'Because it is the only honest song I have ever heard about empire'  
  
He smiled bleakly. 'All the other bards and poets, they talk about the glory and the greatness of empire. Even when they sing of an empire dying, it's always in fire and sword and drama. They never want to think about an empire just dying of time'  
  
'Those are not a warrior's sentiments, brother', said Lethe with an uncharacteristically warm smile  
  
Leon just shrugged. 'I love all your songs and poems, though. Even the... strange ones'  
  
A polite cough interrupted them, and the twins spun, their ease turned into the deadly grace of warriors in a heartbeat, hands flying to their swords.  
  
'I believe you seek a Gaidin?'  
  
  
  
Lethe bowed gracefully to the Aes Sedai, aware of Akrada's presence behind her, and gave a cool smile.  
  
'I am Lethe Nightsong, of Shienar, as Akrada may have informed you. This is my brother Leon'  
  
Leon bowed, his inflexible armour permitting little more than a stoop.  
  
'You wish to learn from the Gaidin?'  
  
Lethe nodded briefly, his dark eyes never leaving the Aes Sedai's face. She was a tall, slender woman, her dark skin and rich brown hair speaking of far-off and sultry climes, away from the cool and misty lands of Shienar and Tar Valon. Her eyes... her eyes were the reason Lethe watched her. Dark cobalt blue, deep and holding the light of the moon, another man would only have thought of their beauty. But Lethe, watchful Lethe, noticed how those eyes, so big and blue and dreamy, never seemed to lose focus, seemed to take everything in. He shivered. Akrada's blades did not worry him, but this woman's eyes did.  
  
She wore a deep blue gown, setting off the colour of her eyes, and a circlet of moonstones hung on a delicate silver chain around her forehead, glinting in the moonlight. She smiled.  
  
'Mother, Leon is a worthy recruit for the Tower, but I urge that you refuse Lethe sanctuary here', said Akrada urgently. Something flickered across his eyes as he stared at the killer of his kinsman. Lethe returned his gaze with blank insolence, folding his arms and leaning with outward coolness on the wall.  
  
Leon growled. 'I like you, Akrada, but you go too far. You will keep a civil tongue in your head when you speak of my brother'  
  
His hands moved away from his sides, ready to grasp and seize the twin blades whose hilts protruded above his back in a heartbeat. Lethe tensed, although his pose remained the same, ready to draw his own sword and shed blood in support of his brother. A fine entrance we make to the Tower  
  
'Stop', called Ariana Sedai with serene command. For the first time, Lethe thought about what Akrada had called her. Mother. She was the Amyrlin Seat.  
  
A movement of the hand, almost too fast for the eye to track, and Lethe's blade sang from the scabbard on his back. He held it in both hands, reversed over his head in the classic pose of the swordsman.  
  
The blade was the familial Nightsong sword, an ell in length and slightly curved, its darkened steel stamped halfway down its length with a crescent moon. In Lethe's hands, it felt feather light and deadly, an extension of his being. Along its flat, in ancient script which none but the scholars could read, read the legend of its name. Terminus Est. Here is the Line of Division. In his less sane moments, Lethe laughed long and hard at that grim jest.  
  
At the drawing of that grim and ancient blade Akrada swore under his breath, and brandished his own swords, stepping in front of the Amyrlin Seat and glaring at Lethe.  
  
Leon's blades hissed from their sheaths in an almost musical note. Tension, ready to burst like some festering sore into bloody and brutal combat, invaded the still night.  
  
Lethe smiled, a touch of his madness in the smile, and drew Terminus Est across his lips, kissing the cold steel then dragged the razor-sharp edge across his wrist, creating a thin red line of blood. He knelt before the Amyrlin, ignoring Akrada. 'By the Light and my hope of salvation, I pledge alleigance to the White Tower and the Amyrlin Seat'  
  
Leon, giving a short, dry laugh also knelt, kissing one of his blades and then wetting the edge with blood.  
  
'By the Light and my hope of salvation, I pledge alleigance to the White Tower and the Amyrlin Seat'  
  
He added under his breath. 'And Light help us all'. Lethe wondered if he meant anyone else to hear it.  
  
If Ariana Sedai was taken aback by the twin's sudden pledge of alleigance, she recovered equilibrium quickly. With a regal smile, she commanded them to rise as newly sworn Aethan'Tar of the White Tower. By her side, Akrada glared at Lethe, but could do nothing to stop him being accepted.  
  
'Show them to rooms, please, Akrada'  
  
Akrada bowed after the Shienaran fashion, his fancloak rippling, and gestured curtly for the Nightsong twins to follow him. Through the gate of the Gaidin Quarters, up a winding stair set on the outside wall, through a postern door, its arch carved with images of battle and war, and down a chilly and stone-paved hall, their footsteps echoing in the silence and emptiness.  
  
Akrada pushed a door along the hallway open. 'You'll stay here'. With that, he spun on his heel and left.  
  
Lethe entered, ducking his head before the doorway's low lintel, and looked around the room.  
  
A small, dark, cold room. The dust of the years covered everything, including the two raised pallets that served as beds. Leon lit a small candle-stub. There was a stone wash-stand on one side of the room, and a small, empty chest at the bottom of each pallet.  
  
Leon shrugged off his armour and went to sleep fully-clothed, exhausted by their long ride south. But Lethe sat cross-legged on his bed and stared unblinking into the darkness for a long time before sleep took him 


End file.
